The Margery Allingham Short Mystery competition 2020 is open from 1 October 2019. The competition closes on 29 February 2020.

Our mission is to find the best unpublished short mystery – one that fits into legendary crime writer Margery’s definition of what makes a great story:

“The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.”

For the 2020 competition, the way a submitted story matches this definition will be awarded greater weighting in the score than any other criteria, so please – bear it in mind. The chronology is important.

Competition was extremely fierce this year with a high number of entries. Congratulations to the writers whose cream of crime writing rose to the top – and commiserations to the many other writers who produced excellent stories but didn’t quite make the longlist – many stories were in close contention.

Winner 2019

Ray Bazowski with ‘A Perfect Murderer’

Story summary: A family affair about what happens when an imperfect family decide to revenge themselves on their tyrannical matirarch.

Runner-up

Rosie De Vekey with ‘Decluttering’

Story summary: Sometimes embarking on decluttering can be life-changing.

Congratulations to both the winner and the runner-up.

Commiserations to the other writers on the shortlist – it was a very close-run competition.

2019 Shortlist

Congratulations to our shortlisted authors!

Slipher’s Rail

Story summary: Money troubles, family ructions, a dead woman and a rare bird. A fasconating, elegant mystery.

Trick of the Eye

Story summary: Just how unreliable is the witness who might hold the key to an abduction that’s stumping the police?

2019 Longlist

The international competition is open to all – both published and unpublished authors from all over the world – and is for short stories of up to 3,500 words. All that we ask is that the story has not been previously published anywhere, or shortlisted for this competition.

How to Write a Winning Story

We asked a former winner of the CWA/Margery Allingham Short Story competition for 6 great tips and here they are:

• Read the great short stories (not just crime fiction) and ask yourself what makes them great
• Don’t kid yourself that writing a short story is much easier than writing a novel
• Think about the effect you want the story to have on the reader
• The opening needs to arrest attention
• The end must leave the reader with a sense of satisfaction
• In between the beginning and the end – don’t waste a word